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A   SEAMARK 


A  SEAMARK  A  THRENODY  FOR 
ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 
BY  BLISS  CARMAN 


BOSTON  COPELAND  AND  DAY    1895 


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COPYRIGHT  1895  BY  COPELAND  AND  DAY 


«  Here  is  my  journey's  end,     ... 
And  very  sea-mark  of  my  utmost  sail. 


A  SEAMARK 

Cold,  the  dull  cold !  What  ails  the  sun, 
And  takes  the  heart  out  of  the  day  ? 

What  makes  the  morning  look  so  mean 
The  Common  so  forlorn  and  gray? 

The  wintry  city's  granite  heart 

Beats  on  in  iron  mockery, 
And  like  the  roaming  mountain  rains 

J  hear  the  thresh  of  feet  go  by. 

It  is  the  lonely  human  surf 

Surging  through  alleys  chill  with  grime, 
The  muttering  churning  ceaseless  floe 

Adrift  out  of  the  North  of  time. 


Fades,  it  all  fades !  I  only  see 

The  poster  with  its  reds  and  blues 

Bidding  the  heart  stand  still  to  take 
Its  desolating  stab  of  news. 

That  intimate  and  magic  name: 

"  Dead  in  Samoa."  .  .  .  Cry  your  cries, 
O  city  of  the  golden  dome, 

Under  the  gray  Atlantic  skies ! 

But  f  have  wander-biddings  now. 

Far  down  the  latitudes  of  sun. 
An  island  mountain  of  the  sea. 

Piercing  the  green  and  rosy  zone. 

Goes  up  into  the  wondrous  day. 

And  there  the  brown-limbed  island  men 
Are  bearing  up  for  burial, 

Within  the  sun's  departing  ken. 


The  master  of  the  roving  kind. 

And  there  where  time  will  set  no  mark 
For  his  irrevocable  rest, 

Under  the  spacious  rnelting  dark, 

With  all  the  nomad  tented  stars 

About  him,  they  have  laid  him  down 

Above  the  crumbling  of  the  sea. 
Beyond  the  turmoil  of  renown. 

O  all  you  hearts  about  the  world 
In  whom  the  truant  gipsy  blood. 

Under  the  frost  of  th's  pale  time. 
Sleeps  like  the  daring  sap  and  flood 

That  dream  of  April  and  reprieve  ! 

You  whom  the  haunted  vision  drives. 
Incredulous  of  home  and  ease. 

Perfection's  lovers  all  your  lives ! 


You  whom  the  wander-spirit  loves 
To  lead  by  some  forgotten  clue 

Forever  vanishing  beyond 

Horizon  brinks  forever  new; 

The  road,  unmarked,  ordained,  whereby 
Your  brothers  of  the  field  and  air 

Before  you,  faithful  blind  and  glad. 
Emerged  from  chaos  pair  by  pair ; 

The  road  whereby  you  too  must  come. 
In  the  unvexed  and  fabled  years. 

Into  the  country  of  your  dream. 

With  all  your  knowledge  in  arrears ! 

You  who  can  never  quite  forget 

Your  glimpse  of  Beauty  as  she  passed. 

The  well-head  where  her  knee  was  pressed. 
The  dew  wherein  her  foot  was  cast; 


O  you  who  bid  the  paint  and  clay 
Be  glorious  when  you  are  dead, 

And  fit  the  plangent  words  in  rhyme 
Where  the  dark  secret  lurks  unsaid  j 

You  brethren  of  the  light-heart  guild, 
The  mystic  fellowcraft  of  joy. 

Who  tarry  for  the  news  of  truth. 
And  listen  for  some  vast  ahoy 

Blown  in  from  sea,  who  crowd  the  wharves 
With  eager  eyes  that  wait  the  ship 

Whose  foreign  tongue  may  fill  the  world 
With  wondrous  tales  from  lip  to  lip ; 

Our  restless  loved  adventurer. 
On  secret  orders  come  to  him, 

Has  slipped  his  cable,  cleared  the  reef. 
And  melted  on  the  white  sea-rim. 


O  granite  hills,  go  down  in  blue ! 

And  like  green  clouds  in  opal  calms, 
You  anchored  islands  of  the  main, 

Float  up  your  loom  of  feathery  palms ! 

For  deep  within  your  dales,  where  lies 
A  valiant  earthling  stark  and  dumb, 

This  savage  undiscerning  heart 
Is  with  the  silent  chiefs  who  come 

To  mourn  their  kin  and  bear  him  gifts, — 
/Who  kiss  his  hand,  and  take  their  place. 
This  last  night  he  receives  his  friends. 
The  journey-wonder  on  his  face. 

He  "was  not  born  for  age."     Ah  no, 

For  everlasting  youth  is  his  ! 
Part  of  the  lyric  of  the  earth 

With  spring  and  leaf  and  blade  he  is. 


'T  will  nevermore  be  April  now 

But  there  will  lurk  a  thought  of  him 

At  the  street  corners,  gay  with  flowers 
From  rainy  valleys  purple-dim, 

O  chiefs,  you  do  not  mourn  alone  ! 

In  that  stern  North  where  mystery  broods, 
Our  mother  grief  has  many  sons 

Bred  in  those  iron  solitudes. 

It  does  not  help  them,  to  have  laid 
Their  coil  of  lightning  under  seas  ; 

They  are  as  impotent  as  you 

To  mend  the  loosened  wrists  and  knees. 

And  yet  how  many  a  harvest  night. 

When  the  great  luminous  meteors  flare 

Along  the  trenches  of  the  dusk. 

The  men  who  dwell  beneath  the  Bear, 


•^ 


Seeing  those  vagrants  of  the  sky 

Float  through  the  deep  beyond  their  hark, 
Like  Arabs  through  the  wastes  of  air, — 

A  flash,  a  dream,  from  dark  to  dark, — 

Must  feel  the  solemn  large  surmise : 
By  a  dim  vast  and  perilous  way 

We  sweep  through  undetermined  time. 
Illumining  this  quench  of  clay, 

A  moment  staunched,  then  forth  again. 

Ah,  not  alone  you  climb  the  steep 
To  set  your  loving  burden  down 

Against  the  mighty  knees  of  sleep. 

With  you  we  hold  the  sombre  faith 

Where  creeds  are  sown  like  rain  at  sea ; 

And  leave  the  loveliest  child  of  earth 
To  slumber  where  he  longed  to  be. 


m- 


His  fathers  lit  the  dangerous  coast 
To  steer  the  daring  merchant  home ; 

His  courage  lights  the  darkling  port 
Where  every  sea-worn  sail  must  come. 

And  since  he  was  the  type  of  all 

That  strain  in  us  which  still  must  fare, 

The  fleeting  migrant  of  a  day, 

Heart-high,  outbound  for  otherwhere, 

Now  therefore,  where  the  passing  ships 
Hang  on  the  edges  of  the  noon, 

And  Northern  liners  trail  their  smoke 
Across  the  rising  yellow  moon. 

Bound  for  his  home,  with  shuddering  screw 
That  beats  its  strength  out  into  speed, 

Until  the  pacing  watch  descries 
On  the  sea-line  a  scarlet  seed 


Smoulder  and  kindle  and  set  fire 
To  the  dark  selvedge  of  the  night, 

The  deep  blue  tapestry  of  stars, 

Then  sheet  the  dome  in  pearly  light, 

There  in  perpetual  tides  of  day, 

Where  men  may  praise  him  and  deplore, 
The  place  of  his  lone  grave  shall  be 

A  seamark  set  forevermore. 

High  on  a  peak  adrift  with  mist. 

And  round  whose  bases,  far  beneath 

The  snow-white  wheeling  tropic  birds. 
The  emerald  dragon  breaks  his  teeth. 


PRINTED  BY  THE  EVERETT  PRESS  COMPANY  BOSTON 


